Fluoride in water prevents adult tooth loss

Children drinking water with added fluoride helps dental health in adulthood decades later, a new study finds.

In an article appearing in the October issue of the American Journal of Public Health, Matthew Neidell reports a strong relationship between fluoride levels in a resident’s county at the time of their birth with tooth loss as an adult.

“Your fluoridation exposure at birth is affecting your tooth loss in your 40s and 50s, regardless of what your fluoridation exposure was like when you were 20 and 30 years old,” said Neidell, a health policy professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

He combined data from a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention community health study and a water census to see the impact of drinking fluoridated water in the 1950s and 1960s on tooth loss in the 1990s.

“We know that the benefits of fluoridation are greatest from birth,” said Howard Pollick, a professor of clinical dentistry at the University of California, San Francisco. “This recent study adds credence to that.”

For children whose adult teeth haven’t shown yet, fluoride still improves tooth enamel, the highly mineralized tissue on teeth’s surface. Fluoride also helps teeth damaged from the decay process and breaks down bacteria on teeth.

The researchers write that respondents who did not live in the same county their entire lives received differing amounts of fluoride in their water, which complicated study findings. The study, which focused on tooth loss as an indication of overall oral health, could not adjust for factors such as use of toothpaste, which also provides a dose of fluoride.

Pollick said that roughly 75 percent of people served by public water systems have fluoride added. The process uses small amounts of the naturally occurring mineral to increase concentrations to no more than one part per million typically.

The American Dental Association, which has supported fluoridation of community water since 1950, says scientists continue to show adding the mineral to water is safe and aids tooth health. One 2007 study of Kaiser Permanente HMO members found that adults benefitted from community fluoridation more than children.

Pollick pointed to a study of Medicaid dental patients in Louisiana, which showed that for every $1 invested in water fluoridation, the state saw $38 in reduced dental costs.

To prevent tooth decay, Pollick recommends also brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste and reducing sugar levels in diet.

More information:
Neidell, M, Herzog K, . The association between community water fluoridation and adult tooth loss. Am J Public Health 100(10), 2010.

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User comments

More propaganda from the fluoride industry. I know for a fact that fluoride can cause tooth lost, I'm a victim. Fluoride peels the skin off inside my mouth after brushing my teeth twice a day for several weeks.

Actually both observations may be true. The fluoride increases the resistance of toot enamel, but it decreases the resistance of gingivae against paradenthosis because of its toxicity.

Connecticut is a fluoridation mandated state with low tooth loss rates but that's because they are one of the few states where Medicaid adults get dental benefits. So this tudy is very doubtful. Besides the evidence shows that many of the most fluoridated states have the highest tooth loss rates.

"The states that were awarded A's (in the Nation's Oral health ReportCard(5)) for having the highest percentage of their population onfluoridated water had the lowest grades for the percentage of peoplewho still had their teeth," according to an analysis by Hardy LimebackPhD, DDS, Head, Preventive Dentistry, University of Toronto

Limeback found that "people were more likely to have missing teeth ifthey lived in the states where more than 50% of the population wasfluoridated. Ironically, the states with the lowest percentage ofcommunities with fluoridated water had the highest grades for oralhealth - in terms of missing teeth (e.g. more people kept their teethif they lived in comm

Eliminate sugary foods from your diet, and you don't need to drink a cumulative rat poison to protect your teeth. Where's the study to determine whether fluoride is a factor in the epidemic of osteoporosis seen in this country since the '80s?

I dont know why they are so intent on putting poisonous floride in water. It only makes sence to put it in toothpaste. I only drink unflorinated water. Some filtration methods dont remove it.Reverse osmosis is the only method I now drink. It is more pure and better PH balanced than spring water (which I used to prefer but no more).

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